Welcome.
I am so glad you're here.
You can follow along to this sitting or lying down,
Whatever makes it easier to stay with me.
If you're here because your mind won't settle,
Then that makes sense.
A lot of men come into this kind of practice when everything feels switched on,
Nothing feels resolved.
You don't need to calm yourself down for this to work.
You don't need to empty your mind.
Just notice that you've stopped for a moment.
Feel the surface beneath you,
The chair,
The floor.
Something is already holding your weight.
Most of the time your body is quietly working in the background without you even noticing.
Keeping pace,
Especially lower down.
When I work with men,
They often describe this as a kind of background tension,
A constant.
Bring your attention to the lower half of your body now,
The region,
Your legs,
Your hips,
Your pelvis,
This part of you that carries you through the day,
Every day.
You don't have to relax it,
Just notice how much effort it's been making.
Your breath doesn't need instruction here.
It will do what it does.
If you notice that something is high up in your chest,
That's fine.
And if it drops,
You'll notice what matters more is staying with this sensation.
So your body can register that it's not being rushed.
You may notice warmth down here,
Or heaviness,
Movement,
Or a low sense of restlessness that's been there longer than today.
That restlessness isn't a problem.
It's just energy with nowhere to go.
You don't need to do anything with it.
Just notice what happens when it's allowed to exist without being acted on.
For some men,
And maybe you,
This is the first time today that your attention has dropped out and into your body.
And that often steals all of your attention.
Your body deserves some of that.
Bring it down low.
So,
Sometimes your body responds to that shift as a soft stirring,
A sense of movement,
A feeling of being slightly more awake in a way that isn't agitating.
You don't need to interpret that.
Bodies tend to respond when they're taken more seriously.
Let your awareness widen now.
Include your lower body and your upper body together.
The whole shape of you.
You may still feel wired.
Maybe you feel heavier.
Or maybe nothing obvious has changed and is normal.
You can stay here for a little longer,
Or you can move on when it feels natural.
There's nothing to finish.
You did so good today,
Taking a moment to adjust when you felt like you couldn't switch off.
Give yourself credit for that.
Thank you for spending this time with me,
And I hope you'll come back again soon.
